Millenials engage with personal finance with ADIB MoneySmart

The MoneySmart community is open to anyone, and is designed to be highly interactive. It will carry articles, blogs, tips and comments from users, who can receive cashable reward points for their input. Independent experts will be on hand to provide their knowledge and objective advice.

ADIB is launching the community in partnership with Germany’s Fidor Bank, which has launched similar thriving communities in Europe.

“MoneySmart brings openness to the world of personal finance and is in line with ADIB’s objective of giving guidance so that people can make better financial decisions. We are providing people a platform to talk about financial issues, exchange advice, and create solutions. Being digital, MoneySmart is accessible by anyone, anywhere. It will help people practically, and should make them feel engaged with many aspects of modern living that are tied to personal finance, from smart tips for saving when travelling to big life decisions, such as buying a house versus renting, education, starting a new business, saving for the future or managing debt smartly,” said Philip King, head of retail banking at Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank at ADIB.

The MoneySmart community is being launched in response to growing demand, especially from millennials, aged between 17 and 35, for a new, dialogue-based approach to personal finance. Members of the community will also have access to exclusive deals and discounts from businesses around the UAE.

A recent study by Visa showed that millennials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are actively online between 4.5 and 6.5 hours a day, and have fully embraced online payments. Some 76 per cent of millennials in the UAE shop online, while approximately half pay their bills online.

"Since millennials spend much of their time on digital platforms and are influenced by their peers, we want to offer a trusted platform to help make well informed decisions. This community is about personal finance matters, but because much of what we do has a relation to money, it will be a forum to discuss many aspects of life. This will also be a place for people to crowdsource ideas that will inspire ADIB to develop financial solutions that suit everyone,” said Petr Klimes, Head of Marketing at ADIB.

ADIB has seen rapid growth in the use of digital channels by its customers, with almost two million mobile transactions initiated monthly via the ADIB mobile banking app. As part of its digital innovation strategy, the bank has also recently revamped its internet and mobile banking platforms to enable customers to conduct their online banking in a simpler and more intuitive manner across all devices. Last year, ADIB launched its new generation of digital branch called ‘ADIB Express’, providing customers with access to an array of digital services within the branch environment.